A new report sheds new light on the former campaign chairman’s work as a lobbyist for a pro-Kremlin political party in Ukraine.

TRUMP NEW YORK

Paul Manafort speaks with the press during an election event in New York, April 19, 2016.

By Victor J. Blue/Bloomberg/Getty Images.

Before joining Donald Trump last March as an unpaid campaign manager, Paul Manafort reportedly owed as much as $17 million to companies controlled by a Russian oligarch and a Ukrainian businessman with political ties to Moscow. According to financial records filed with the government of Cyprus and reviewed by The New York Times shell companies linked to Manafort and his business activities were millions of dollars in debt while the longtime Washington lobbyist was working as a political consultant for the pro-Kremlin Party of Regions in Ukraine. Most notably, Manafort—who retroactively registered as a foreign agent last month for his lobbying work—owed $7.8 million to a company connected to Oleg Deripaska, a Russian oligarch with close ties to Vladimir Putin. Manafort also owed a separate sum of $9.9 million to a Cyprus company linked to Ivan Fursin, a Party of Regions member of the Ukrainian Parliament, through a Delaware-based LLC that he previously used to purchase real estate in New York City, the Times reports.

The Cyprus records provide a window into Manafort’s murky financial dealings in Ukraine and Russia, which has long been the subject of scrutiny amid the ongoing probes into whether the Trump campaign coordinated with the Russian government in the 2016 election. In August of last year, Manafort’s name reportedly surfaced on a handwritten ledger that showed he was designated to receive $12.7 million in undisclosed payments from the Party of Regions—a revelation that thrust a spotlight on Manafort’s previous business transactions and ultimately led to his resignation as Trump’s campaign chairman. (On Monday, Ukrainian prosecutors said they haven’t found any proof of illegal payments to Manafort.) And last month, the Associated Press reported that Robert Mueller, the special counsel appointed to lead the Justice Department investigation into Russia’s election meddling, is investigating Manafort’s past work in Ukraine.

A spokesperson for Manafort flatly rejected the suggestion that there was any connection between Manafort’s past debts and his work for Donald Trump. “Manafort is not indebted to Mr. Deripaska or the Party of Regions, nor was he at the time he began working for the Trump campaign,” Jason Maloni told the Times. “The broader point, which Mr. Manafort has maintained from the beginning, is that he did not collude with the Russian government to influence the 2016 election.”

Maloni later sent an e-mail to The New York Times demanding that the paper retract its report, arguing that the Times had “offered no evidence that these transactions represent current obligations” and noting that the LLC documents “do not show these are personal or current obligations.” The e-mail, which Maloni shared with the Hive, alleges that the Times acted irresponsibly by using “unproven allegations from a counter party in litigation as actual evidence of a debt.” (A spokesperson for the Times said they have carefully reviewed the request and see no basis for a correction.)

Still, the latest news about Manafort comes at a poor time for White House, which has been embroiled in controversy over the revelation that members of the Trump campaign—including Manafort—met with a Russian lawyer last summer in hopes of securing damaging information about Hillary Clinton. According to a series of e-mails released last week by Donald Trump Jr., an intermediary had promised the “high level and sensitive information” as “part of Russia and its government's support for Mr. Trump.” The subsequent meeting, to which Trump Jr. eagerly agreed, was also attended by Manafort and Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, as well as an alleged ex-Soviet spy turned Russian-American lobbyist and two Russian translators—one of whom, Irakly “Ike” Kaveladze, had once been accused by congressional investigators of participating in a $1.4 billion money laundering scheme to funnel money from Eastern Europe through U.S. banks. (Kaveladze has denied any wrongdoing.) Both Manafort and Kushner were copied on the e-mail exchange setting up the meeting.

This article has been updated.

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